Avodah Mailing List

Volume 17 : Number 087

Friday, July 14 2006

• IYOV
• RE: How do Achronim become Rishonim?
• Re: How do Achronim become Rishonim?
• Re: As the situation in Israel deteriorates...
• Names of captives
• Capital punishment
• tzedakah for non-Jews
• RE: How do Achronim become Rishonim?
• Re: Capital punishment
• Re: historical contingency and brachos
• How do Achronim become Rishonim?
• Re: historical contingency and brachos

I'm putting together a Tishaa Baav shiur (hopefully it will be a chag)
concerning Iyov. The gemara B"B 15a discusses when Iyov lived if at
all. One of the proofs is from the use of the word eipho which (shame on
me that I never noticed before) is spelled 2 different ways in Breishit
(chap 27 alef-fei-vav-alef, chap 37and 43 alef-yud-fei-hei)

Any ideas or lessons on this difference?

KT
Joel Rich

"Marty Bluke" <marty.bluke@gmail.com> wrote:
> Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote:
>> I don't think that it would be particularly wild to mark the
>> beginning of the current era after the printing of the Mishna Berurah.

> I think it has to be later. The Chazon Ish, R' Moshe, RSZA all
> disagree with the MB. I don't think anyone today would disagree with
> the MB.

Your assumption is incorrect. There are still those who dare to disagree
with the MB.

 -- 
Zev Sero
zev@sero.name

On Thu, Jul 13, 2006 at 11:05:46AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
: Your assumption is incorrect. There are still those who dare to disagree
: with the MB.

And there are still Litvaks who hold like the AhS over the MB, Chassidim
(and not just within Lubavitch) who use the SA haRav, and the existence
of Sepharadim was already noted. (Does anyone use the Qitzur that way?)
I know there is one lurker who pasqens for himself from the Ribbis
el-Qafeh (R's "Kapach" granfather and grandson), for his qehillah from
the Ben Ish Chai or R' Ovadiah Yosef, and when I was visiting, he would
have to pull out an AhS or IM...

Add to that the MB only covers one of the Turim, and I don't think the
idea works.

It's an interesting observation, though, that we can think of
a seifer of OC as being on "nearly all of halakhah" that all of
us allowed this conversation to go on so far without raising the
difficulty. It says much for the need for RDHojda's CM campaign
<http://www.ou.org/pdf/ja/5766/winter66/PersIntegrity.pdf>.

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight,
micha@aishdas.org        and he wants to sleep well that night too."
http://www.aishdas.org         - Rav Yosef Yozel Horwitz, Alter of Novarodok
Fax: (270) 514-1507      

On Jul 13, 2006, at 12:23 PM, T613K@aol.com wrote:

> * In your tefillot, keep in mind Gilad ben Aviva Shalit and the two
> other soldiers whose names have just been released: Ehud  
> Goldwasser, 31, from Nahariya and Eldad Regev, 26, from Kiryat  
> Motzkin. (Their mothers' Hebrew names have not been published).

I have it on good authority that Eldad Regev's Hebrew name is Eldad  
ben Tova.

> * In your tefillot, keep in mind Gilad ben Aviva Shalit and the two
> other soldiers whose names have just been released: Ehud Goldwasser, 31,
> from Nahariya and Eldad Regev, 26, from Kiryat Motzkin. (Their mothers'
> Hebrew names have not been published).

Ehud ben Malkah
Eldad ben Tovah

-- 
Zev Sero
zev@sero.name

> The Rambam clarifies that if a BD happens to have 100 cases present
> themselves, one day after another, then they must execute them all,
> and may not shrink from the duty out of some sense that it would be
> wrong to kill all those people.

In light of this I have two questions.
1) Why then is only the BD blamed and called Chavlonis, and not also the
malchus and Kohain Gadol? All of these institutions are in ' positions
of leadership, teaching, and carrying out justice.

2)Why did the Sanhedrin leave the Lishkas HaGazis because there were
too many capital cases, as is commonly learned?

cbk

[Micha:]
> Darkhei Shalom is, according to R' Aharon Lichtenstein, part of
> "vehalakhta bidrakhav". I even tend to spell "Shalom" capitalized in
> this instance, as it seems to me that we're using it in a context where
> it qualifies as a sheim Hashem.
> It is thus deOraisa.

That is very interesting. However, it doesn't necessarily mean that
was the case. In other words, it could be that calling darchei shalom
a part of vehalakhta bidrakav came about once the rabbanan instituted
that one should give tzedakah to non-Jews because of darchei shalom,
but that it wasn't originally there and isn't part of the ikkur mitzvah
of tzedakah but rather another mitzvah called vahalakhta bidrakav. Is
there a nafka mina? I'm not sure.

cbk

>>> If we are in a new era, it's not because of the Mishna Berura.

>> Can you suggest an across-the-board substitute? Or, do you believe there
>> is none?

>According to Wikipedia ...
>Askenazim constitute around 80% of Jews worldwide.
>I don't think these seforim had as significant an impact 
>on their constituencies as the Mishna Berurah had on its 
>adopters. 

But the point is that there were many Ashkenazi Jews who didn't accept
the Mishnah Berura.
Hungarian Jews, for example followed the Kitzur, others followed the
Chayei Odom. And since the Mishan Berura is only on Orach Chaim, the
Orech Hashulchan had probably more impact then anything. And try to tell
a Hungarian Jew that the Kitzur has no impact. Or Sephardic Jews that
their sefer has no impact. You have a very narrow outlook.

The deaths of RMF and R' Yaakov Kamineyzky probably did more to define
the end of an era than anything else. As the death of Rebbe defined
the end of the Tanoim, etc

On 7/13/06, cbk <fallingstar613@hotmail.com> wrote:
> 1) Why then is only the BD blamed and called Chavlonis, and not also the
> malchus and Kohain Gadol? All of these institutions are in ' positions
> of leadership, teaching, and carrying out justice.

I don't know about the malchus, but for the connection between the Kohain
Gadol and cases of homicide see Rashi on Bemidbar 35:25 and the Mishna
and Gemara on Makkot 11a.

(My apologies to all for my delay in following up on this topic. I wanted
to be sure that I've thought it through fairly well.)

First, a comparatively minor point:

In Avodah Digest 17:80, R' Jacob Farkas wrote:
> Modern society or otherwise, Yidden will always insist on having
> bread present at every Se'udas Mitzvah. There is no other constant.
> The special status stands, IMHO.

But in 17:81, he wrote:
> Certain Heimishe Yidden are maqpid to eat water Hallah for Lehem
> Mishneh precisely because of the argument you raised. They do
> consider flavored bread to be PHBK, and thus will not use it for
> Lehem Misneh.

So, if I understand you correctly, Yidden *don't* always insist on
having pas gamur at a Se'udas Mitzvah. Some do and some don't, and the
special status remains only for those who go out of their way to follow
the ancient practice.

Okay, back to the main topic. He wrote:
> Eating on the go and Seudah are natural opposites. I still don't
> know of Seudah without Pas, at least not in most circles.

What do you mean by "seudah" in this context? If you refer to "seudas
mitzvah", well, of course every Seudas Mitzvah includes Pas, because
the halacha tells us that it must. And if you refer to even an ordinary
seudah, that is, an ordinary weekday lunch or dinner -- are you saying
that you include bread at every such meal?

> I don't know for certain in which society and at what point in time
> bread shifted from being the central feature to just another article
> of food, but this shift has not taken place by the halakha-observant
> precisely because of the special Halakhos surrounding bread. Now I
> realize that this logic is somewhat circular, but much of Yiddishkeit
> is about preserving the values and customs of yore, intended for us
> to link to our ancestors.

I too consider that logic to be somewhat circular.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, as you point out the importance of
preserving true Torah values, which I totally agree with.

The difficulty -- and this is the whole point of this thread, as I see
it -- is to separate values which are genuinely Torah-sourced, and those
which the Torah community has adopted from the general human culture.

In other words, does bread have a special status because the Torah says
so? Or it is more accurate to say that humanity has given bread a special
status, and that this is why the Torah mentions bread in contexts where
it needs to cite a staple food?

Some psukim are well-known for mentioning bread: "B'zayas apecha tochal
lechem" (Ber 3:19), "Lechem le'echol ubeged lilbosh" (Ber 28:20), "Lechem
min hashamayim" (Shmos 16:4), "Lo al halechem l'vado" (Dev 8:3), "Lo
b'miskenus tochal bah lechem" (Dev 8:9). It is my opinion that in these
cases, bread is cited simply as an example of a popular and generic food.

Bread is indeed also mentioned in the context of a meal, and as the main
part of the meal: "V'ekcha pas lechem v'saadu libchem" (Ber 18:5), "Lechem
u'nzid adashim" (Ber 25:34). But here too, the Torah is not necessarily
teaching us that bread should be important; it might simply be reflecting
the fact that that society did consider bread to be important.

Let's compare this to women's hair: The Torah teaches us that the kohen
must make the sotah's hair "parua". One might say that this does not
apply in a case where the woman's hair was already parua, but that is not
how Chazal take it. Rather, we learn from this that the Torah expects a
married woman's hair to NOT be parua. Even in a society where everyone's
hair is parua, the Torah is teaching us that this is assur for a Jewish
married woman.

But as far as I know, this limud is not used for shoes. In the case
of chalitzah, the Torah teaches us that the yevamah must remove her
brother-in-law's shoe. One might say that we learn from this that the
Torah expects men to wear shoes, but I've never heard of such a thing. We
are taught to wear shoes when davening, but chalitzah would teach us to
wear shoes in other circumstances as well.

The point I'm trying to make is that it is not easy to distinguish
between when the Torah is teaching us something, and when it is simply
speaking b'lashon bnei adam. Unless Chazal make it explicit, as they
did by women's hair, how can we know?

Bread was used in korbanos, but that doesn't teach us anything about
it being a singularly special food. Not only do many non-bread flour
products appear in the korbanos, but many non-flour foods do as well.
And some non-food items too, if we count the incense. Bread is important,
but not singularly so.

Is there anything in Torah which does teach us the truth of bread's
status, that it is inherently the most important part of the meal, that it
inherently gets special brachos, and that the other foods are tafel to it?

Maybe there is. Here's what I came up with:

Perhaps se'orah will prove the point. Chazal seem to consider barley
an animal food which is eaten by humans only on rare occasions.
Barley products have less status than wheat products, but only to the
extent that when both are present, preference is given to the wheat.
When wheat is absent, there's no question that barley has all the
standing of dagan. And as a consequence of that standing, if for some
reason one would have a barley bread, it would get Hamotzi and Benching
and everything else -- notwithstanding its status as animal food.

Perhaps this is the point which will prove RJF's side? That even in
a society which considers this food to be fit primarily for animals,
it nevertheless does not lose its status as bread. How much more so,
in the society I perceive, in which bread is considered as less-than-
ideal nutritionally, and is used mostly for convenience in sandwiches
and with liptan, how much more so does it maintain its brachos and status
as the ikar of the meal.

Except that the halacha does concede to certain cases where bread is NOT
the ikar. One example is where one has absolutely no appetite for bread,
but eats it to soothe his throat from the salty herring that he swallowed --
Shulchan Aruch 212:1.

Even better is the case of Mishneh Brurah 177:3 -- "If he doesn't want
to eat bread, but he does eat a little bread to cover the brachos of the
food, the Acharonim write that it is a safek. They question whether the
bread can cover them, because it's not shayach to say that they're tafel
to the bread, since he doesn't want to eat it... Or perhaps, since it is
the derech haolam to establish a meal with bread, the Hamotzi will cover
them in any event. Therefore, the acharonim write that it is better to
make the appropriate bracha on each item, and not eat the bread at all..."

If I understand this MB correctly, he gives one argument that the Hamotzi
does *not* cover the other food (because a food that he has no desire for
can't be the ikar), and one argument that it *does* cover the other food
(because that's the derech haolam). This is NOT the argument RJF uses,
which is that bread is an *inherent* ikar. The MB merely observes that
the derech haolam - in *his* olam - was that meals are established with
bread. In a world (whether real or hypothetical) where meals are not
automatically bread-based, the question has only one side, and a person
who eats bread merely to cover the other foods would have to say brachos
on the other foods anyway.

I have diverged from my original topic somewhat. I began by asking
whether a water-and-flour bread might be mezonos nowadays, in those
cultures where such a bread is not automatically indicative of a meal. I
got sidetracked into an argument over whether or not it is possible to
have such a culture, to have a situation where bread and seudah are
not equivalent. I think that I have adequately demonstrated that it
is at least theoretically possible to have such a situation, at least
according to the Mishne Berurah.

Whether such situations *actually* exist in today's world is not a 
valid question, since there are so many different subcultures even 
within the small world of Shomrei Mitzvos. I don't doubt that RJF has 
a genuine appreciation for bread, and that he really does consider it 
the ikar of his meal. But somehow, I never got that appreciation, nor 
do I see any need to push my feelings in that direction.

Akiva Miller

R' Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote:
>I don't think these seforim had as significant an impact on their
>constituencies as the Mishna Berurah had on its adopters.

I think the Yalkut Yosef has had a far great impact on its constituency
than the MB. I have yet to find a community that paskens like the MB,
niether in Israel nor America. The MB may have had an impact in the study
of halacha but not as much in psak. How many poskim pasken like the MB?

The Yalkut Yosef (or the psak of R' Ovadia Yosef), on the other hand,
has become the final say on matters of jewish law and practice for many
communities both in Israel and abroad.

Jacob 

R' Akiva Miller wrote:
> In Avodah Digest 17:80, R' Jacob Farkas wrote:
>> Modern society or otherwise, Yidden will always insist on having
>> bread present at every Se'udas Mitzvah. There is no other constant.
>> The special status stands, IMHO.

> But in 17:81, he wrote:
>> Certain Heimishe Yidden are maqpid to eat water Hallah for Lehem
>> Mishneh precisely because of the argument you raised. They do
>> consider flavored bread to be PHBK, and thus will not use it for
>> Lehem Misneh.

> So, if I understand you correctly, Yidden *don't* always insist on
> having pas gamur at a Se'udas Mitzvah. Some do and some don't, and the
> special status remains only for those who go out of their way to follow
> the ancient practice.

Yidden do insist on Pas Gamur. There are Yidden who are extra Mahmir
when it comes to Lehem Mishnah, and will insist on having bread that is
Pas Gamur l'khol haDeieos. It is noteworthy that many of the very same
Yidden are very consistent and will recite Mezonos on rolls and breads
that are "kneaded with mei peiros." In short, everyone is Maqpid to eat
what they define is Pas at Seudos Mitzvah.

> Okay, back to the main topic. He wrote:
>> Eating on the go and Seudah are natural opposites. I still don't
>> know of Seudah without Pas, at least not in most circles.

> What do you mean by "seudah" in this context? If you refer to "seudas
> mitzvah", well, of course every Seudas Mitzvah includes Pas, because
> the halacha tells us that it must. And if you refer to even an ordinary
> seudah, that is, an ordinary weekday lunch or dinner -- are you saying
> that you include bread at every such meal?

Seudah, as in Hilkhos Se'udah. Meals without Pas are not Se'udah for
Halakhic purposes. I fully understand that the premise of the question
raised by this subject is why, but to establish the why, we have to
establish that the parameters are there, and that without Pas there is
no Se'udah, for Halakhic purposes. My response to the why is because we
continued the tradition against social trend.

>> I don't know for certain in which society and at what point in time
>> bread shifted from being the central feature to just another article
>> of food, but this shift has not taken place by the halakha-observant
>> precisely because of the special Halakhos surrounding bread. Now I
>> realize that this logic is somewhat circular, but much of Yiddishkeit
>> is about preserving the values and customs of yore, intended for us
>> to link to our ancestors.

> I too consider that logic to be somewhat circular.

> That's not necessarily a bad thing, as you point out the importance of
> preserving true Torah values, which I totally agree with.

> The difficulty -- and this is the whole point of this thread, as I see
> it -- is to separate values which are genuinely Torah-sourced, and those
> which the Torah community has adopted from the general human culture.

So genuine values are only for Hoq Bli Ta'am? Mitzvos Sikhlios share
values with "general human culture," and they are in no way less of a
value. Much of "derekh eretz" found in Hazal is not inconsistent with
general human culture (think of Derekh Eretz in the context of l'lamdokh
Derekh Eretz Shelo... mentioned in various subjects)

> In other words, does bread have a special status because the Torah says
> so? Or it is more accurate to say that humanity has given bread a special
> status, and that this is why the Torah mentions bread in contexts where
> it needs to cite a staple food?

> Some psukim are well-known for mentioning bread: "B'zayas apecha tochal
> lechem" (Ber 3:19), "Lechem le'echol ubeged lilbosh" (Ber 28:20), "Lechem
> min hashamayim" (Shmos 16:4), "Lo al halechem l'vado" (Dev 8:3), "Lo
> b'miskenus tochal bah lechem" (Dev 8:9). It is my opinion that in these
> cases, bread is cited simply as an example of a popular and generic food.

Don't forget the human aspect WRT to labor and time required in converting
a stalk of wheat into a loaf of bread. The work people put into bread
making contributed vastly to its Hashivus.

> Bread is indeed also mentioned in the context of a meal, and as the main
> part of the meal: "V'ekcha pas lechem v'saadu libchem" (Ber 18:5), "Lechem
> u'nzid adashim" (Ber 25:34). But here too, the Torah is not necessarily
> teaching us that bread should be important; it might simply be reflecting
> the fact that that society did consider bread to be important.

Sh'muel 20:27 where Shaul asks why Ben Yishai didn't come "El halahem."
Bread was most certainly central to Se'udah, and the P'suqim do indicate
this. Meat had a secondary role in Se'udah. Vegetables were seasonal.
Bread was the only constant.

...
> Perhaps this is the point which will prove RJF's side? That even in
> a society which considers this food to be fit primarily for animals,
> it nevertheless does not lose its status as bread. How much more so,
> in the society I perceive, in which bread is considered as less-than-
> ideal nutritionally, and is used mostly for convenience in sandwiches
> and with liptan, how much more so does it maintain its brachos and status
> as the ikar of the meal.

The vast majority of barley grown in the US today is used for animal
feed. Barley is an older grain than wheat, and was replaced by wheat
because wheat makes better bread, due to its higher gluten content.
Traditionally, barley made better beer, because of its higher starch
content, more suitable for the malts necessary in beer making. The grains
are interchangeable though, barley bread is not entirely uncommon and
wheat beer is fairly common as well.

I don't see barley as proof of the Hashivus of Pas, nor do I see a need
for such a proof to begin with.

> Except that the halacha does concede to certain cases where bread is NOT
> the ikar. One example is where one has absolutely no appetite for bread,
> but eats it to soothe his throat from the salty herring that he swallowed --
> Shulchan Aruch 212:1.

I discussed this scenario in my earlier post:
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol17/v17n079.shtml#01

(Summary of earlier post pertinent to this comment) Even it that case,
some Aharonim suggest that the bread is only a Tafeil in a specific case,
where the uber-salty fish was consumed right after eating something
really sweet, where the salty food is used to balance out the flavors.

> Even better is the case of Mishneh Brurah 177:3 -- "If he doesn't want
> to eat bread, but he does eat a little bread to cover the brachos of the
> food, the Acharonim write that it is a safek. They question whether the
> bread can cover them, because it's not shayach to say that they're tafel
> to the bread, since he doesn't want to eat it... Or perhaps, since it is
> the derech haolam to establish a meal with bread, the Hamotzi will cover
> them in any event. Therefore, the acharonim write that it is better to
> make the appropriate bracha on each item, and not eat the bread at all..."

> If I understand this MB correctly, he gives one argument that the Hamotzi
> does *not* cover the other food (because a food that he has no desire for
> can't be the ikar), and one argument that it *does* cover the other food
> (because that's the derech haolam). This is NOT the argument RJF uses,
> which is that bread is an *inherent* ikar. The MB merely observes that
> the derech haolam - in *his* olam - was that meals are established with
> bread. In a world (whether real or hypothetical) where meals are not
> automatically bread-based, the question has only one side, and a person
> who eats bread merely to cover the other foods would have to say brachos
> on the other foods anyway.

OH 177 discusses the Halakhos of D'varim Haba'im B'sokh HaSeudah,
what is covered by the Seudah and what isn't. The MB brings a Mahloqes
Aharonim in a scenario where Pas is unwanted, and only introduced so
as to not require b'rakhos on the other foods. A good example of that
scenario would be a nosh party with items that have various b'rakhos and
someone figures that why not just wash, have a crouton, and Patter all
the b'rakhos. In that case, some Aharonim say that one is better off not
washing and eating said crouton, and rather keep it a non-Seudah. (If
he did wash and make a haMotzi he may very well have forced the issue
and the nosh becomes Tafeil... Furthermore, I use nosh as an example
because I am hard pressed to find a scenario where bread would be so
unwelcome culinary, not unwelcome because of bentching phobia.)

The MB adds, that should it be on Shabbos or Yom Tov, where you are
obligated to eat a Seudah anyway, that S'vara of the Aharonim does not
apply, because even if your intentions are transparent, you are obligated
to eat a Seudah anyway, so wash on your k'zayis sized crouton and be
Qovei'a Seudah.

> I have diverged from my original topic somewhat. I began by asking
> whether a water-and-flour bread might be mezonos nowadays, in those
> cultures where such a bread is not automatically indicative of a meal. I
> got sidetracked into an argument over whether or not it is possible to
> have such a culture, to have a situation where bread and seudah are
> not equivalent. I think that I have adequately demonstrated that it
> is at least theoretically possible to have such a situation, at least
> according to the Mishne Berurah.

I have yet to see a solid ra'ayah that bread could become a Tafeil,
with the exception of OH 212, but that has its own limits. MB in OH
177:1 never discusses bread as Tafeil, but whether it is proper to be
Qovei'a Seudah in order to escape B'rakhos in a scenario where Q'vias
Seudah has no other purpose, because bread is unwanted.

Jacob Farkas

*********************


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